Pacific 70, Long Beach St. 55

2/9/2008 11:28 PM

STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) -Michael Kirby came off the bench to score 12 points, and Steffan Johnson had 11 points and a game-high nine assists to lead Pacific to a 70-55 victory over Long Beach State in a Big West Conference game Saturday night.

Pacific's bench outscored Long Beach's 34-8 as the Tigers improved to 17-6 and remained tied atop the Big West with Cal State Northridge at 8-2.

Long Beach made a run at Pacific early in the second half behind Donovan Morris, who scored a game-high 30 points. Morris scored 11 consecutive Long Beach points to cut a 12-point Pacific lead to 54-49 with 11:30 remaining, but the 49ers (5-17, 2-8) never got any closer.

Johnson made two 3-pointers in the final 3:30 as Pacific built its biggest lead at 17 points and cruised to the finish. Anthony Brown scored 10 points for the Tigers and Bryan LeDuc had nine points and a game-high six rebounds off the bench.

Arturas Lazdauskas scored 10 points for Long Beach, but the 49ers didn't get more than five points from any other player.

Pacific's bench made 9 of 10 attempts as the Tigers shot 62 percent from the field in the first half.

Pacific built a 14-point lead midway through the half, but Long Beach cut that advantage in half three minutes before the break behind Morris and Lazdauskas, who combined for 24 first-half points.

Lazdauskas scored inside two minutes into the second half to cut Pacific's 40-30 halftime lead to six points, but the Tigers answered with an 8-2 run and never were seriously threatened the rest of the way.